The stench of damp earth and decay clung to the air, thick and cloying. It permeated everything – our clothes, our hair, even the meager rations we were given. It was the smell of defeat, of subjugation, of lives lived at the whim of cruel masters. Orcs and goblins. Savage, brutish creatures who held us in their grubby paws. If it had been elves, or even demons, perhaps there would have been some semblance of order, some twisted form of respect. But these… these were animals in humanoid form, driven by base desires and an insatiable thirst for violence.
They had decimated our men, leaving the women to suffer a fate worse than death. Forced labor, endless toil under the watchful eyes of their whip-wielding overseers. And then… the breeding caves. A place of unspeakable horror, where women were dragged to fulfill the Orcs' twisted desires.
One day, they called for my mother. She was a strong woman, weathered by hardship, but her eyes held a quiet fear that had haunted me since the invasion. She kissed my forehead, a silent promise to return, but she never did.
That night, fueled by a rage I had never known, I snuck into the breeding cave. The scene that greeted me shattered the last vestiges of my innocence. The air was thick with the stench of blood and something else… something sickeningly sweet. My mother lay sprawled on the cold stone floor, her eyes vacant, her body broken. It was then, amidst the horror and the grief, that something inside me snapped.
The world narrowed. All the fear, all the despair, coalesced into a burning, white-hot hatred. It wasn't just grief I felt, but a burning desire for vengeance, a promise etched into my very soul. I would not let their deaths be in vain. I would not let their cruelty go unpunished.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I simply stared at my mother's lifeless form, and in that moment, I made a vow. I would become the scourge of the Broken Tooth tribe, the instrument of their destruction. I would become a monster to fight monsters.
Survival became secondary. My life was now dedicated to one single, all-consuming purpose: revenge. I learned their ways, their language, their weaknesses. I became a shadow, moving unseen through their camps, gathering information, waiting for my opportunity.
I saw the other women, broken and resigned, their spirits crushed. I couldn't save them all, not yet, but I could give them hope. I whispered stories of resistance, of rebellion, of a future where we would be free. Some looked at me with fear, others with disbelief, but in a few eyes, I saw a spark ignite, a flicker of the same fire that burned within me.
The Orcs and goblins thought they had broken us. They were wrong. They had created something far more dangerous: a woman with nothing left to lose, driven by a rage that would consume them all. The war was lost, perhaps, but the fight… the fight was just beginning. And I would see it through to the bitter end, even if it meant staining my own hands with blood. I would become the nightmare they never saw coming, the Scourge of the Broken Tooth.